Fa La La La La

la la la lahhhhhhh. . .well it's been exciting and crazy first couple of weeks of December. Let's see if I can catch up.

Monday, December 3rd we invited family friends to go walk the Layton lights with us. It was a fun night, we even found the hidden elf. Then we came back and had hot cocoa and cookies.

Marcus thought the kissy reindeer lights was gross so I offered to kiss him in front of it which lead to me chasing him down making kissing noises and Steve managed to snap a picture.

The boys had dress/tech rehearsals at school for the musical Elf which are really long nights. Lila had to be at Farmington High school all day Thursday, December 4th for Dance Company (like 7am to 8:30pm) so Steve and I found ourselves in a quiet house that night and decided to have an impromptu date night and went out for dinner then delivered a few neighborhood gifts. It was fun.

Friday, December 5th Lila had a Chinese field trip to the UofU campus and learned about some scholarship opportunities due to her language. To be honest she was really stressed about missing two days of school back to back. I was praying for her and she managed to get a lot of homework done Wednesday night so she was feeling pretty good about things and enjoyed both opportunities. She was hoping to meet up with Ellie on campus but Ellie was only available early and Lila did know exactly how the day was going to play out so they didn't connect. 

That afternoon Andrew was concert master for his orchestra performance. Marcus and I took him for his call time at 2pm when I realized we were right next to the high school as it was about to be letting out so I texted Lila and asked if her and Macey would like a ride home. They gladly accepted and walked to the library while Marcus picked out a few books. Then we all went back for the performance. It was a lot of fun. I keep telling him the fun thing about orchestra is you can have what seems like a weird obscure part but when it gets put together it sounds amazing which is exactly what happened.

Then we came home had a quick dinner and got them ready for their call time. Steve, myself, Lila, and Miles all went to the performance Friday night and it was also a lot of fun. The audience was laughing and the kids did great. Marcus was the head elf Charlie and kicked off the show by checking in with Buddy about his toy making quota for the day. Andrew was the Macey's Manager and had some great comedic lines that he delivered well. He told me as I was dropping him off, "Mom, please do not make eye contact with me during the show. I do not want to break character and if I make eye contact with you I know I will." 😍😂

Fake Santa stole the show during intermission by dancing with a broom to Christmas music. It was hilarious!

Andrew and Marcus taking bows together.

Their cute director was the same one they did Jungle Book with over the summer. I saw her back by the sound board and casually said, "great job director! it was really cute!" She jumped out of her chair and came over and said, "I love your boys! They are so cute and Andrew on stage. . .you cannot teach what he does." I told her about his not making eye contact comment and she giggled. We love her and maybe we'll be able to do a show with her over the summer.

They both did so well but the thing that stole my heart the most was there was a special needs kid in their cast. Like all of the kids he wanted to be the lead, Buddy and occasionally he would drift into Buddy's scenes or linger on stage. Andrew would always kindly redirect him or take his hand and walk slowly off stage with him. Then they told me that when they play games as a cast everyone agrees when it's Parker's turn they don't run as fast so he can get them. Melt my heart. They can be crazy stinky boys but there is a tender heart inside of them. 💓

Saturday, December 7th Steve took the boys to Home Depot to get the kid craft for the day and a few supplies so we could poor the office countertops. They turned out beautiful. We are so excited to have that completed and to start getting the work stations setup. It is going to be a really nice space for Steve.

don't mind Marcus's ear in the pic, he was admiring the countertops

Right after pouring we got the boys ready for their call time at which point Marcus realized he was going to miss his basketball game (it was rather unfortunate that we had the afternoon game this week but oh well). I told him his cast was depending on him and he would have fun. Only Steve and I went to the show Saturday as you are only allowed to get 2 tickets in the first two rows. We are glad we could support the boys but Friday's show was better. Although Marcus did keep us entertained. Andrew didn't have any costume changes but Marcus had 8 costume changes and at one point he came on stage and his white button up business shirt was buttoned up wrong so he spent the whole scene fixing it while pacing around. 😂 We also noticed half way through the play that he didn't have his shoes one. The costume requirement was black shoes and I told both the boys to put them on before they left but didn't check so I wondered if he had put on the wrong shoes but after the play he came out with his black shoes on and told us it was a lot easier to do his costume changes without having to take his shoes on and off so he just left them off since he had black socks on, he's a thinker and I thought it was a wise idea. Steve managed to run home during intermission to scrape the countertop drips. After the show we hustled to Andrew's basketball game. We told the coach we would be gone but they were unable to get subs so they were playing with 4 boys. We made it in time for the second half. Andrew had fun and they did manage to have their first win this season.

 

We came home to find Lila in a much better mood after completing all of her coursework she could to make up for her missed days. She was not feeling great and got frustrated that morning about some work not being posted which sent her in a spiral, I was just really glad she managed to pull out and be productive. Sunday we had a chill morning. After church as a different story, I had choir, Steve had a meeting for his committee, then Andrew had Temple and Priesthood Preparation, and finally we let the boys do gingerbread houses during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.

Oh and the boys managed to get a rubber chicken stuck to the ceiling. They managed to shoot it down only to get it stuck again. We had a similar incident last Christmas with a brown dog. Raising boys is very different than girls. 😂

 

Monday, December 9th my brother was having surgery so I offered to watch Anson. They called Friday and asked if we could really do it and I jumped at the chance. I told the boys they could skip school and they were so excited to have a day with Anson. We setup chairs for gaming and I even let them open a new game, NBA 2K24. At one point they went outside to play soccer, I was glad I had decided to do my hair with the bathroom window open so I could hear them because they managed to kick the soccer ball over the fence and across the street.

 

Then we stopped for lunch and played some card games. We played left right center with coins and I told them I would take them to the Dollar Store to spend their winnings. Anson said, "Are you teaching us how to gamble?" Uh, no! So I sent Marcee a text explaining what we were doing so she wouldn't wonder what happened if Anson mentioned gambling. 😂 At which point Marcee texted and said Jake's surgery had been delayed by 3 hours. I felt so bad for them just waiting around but told them not to worry about us we were doing great. I loaded the boys to go to the store and realized once again it we would be close to Lila as school was letting out and she was happy to get a ride since she had a quick turn around for her call time for the Winter Concert. I let them each pick out a certain amount of toys based on their winnings. Then we found these cool skateboards so I let them each get one of those and then they found croc pins next to the register so we bought those too. They had a blast.

and they found this dollhouse toilet and kept saying skibbity toilet and laughing. slang these days is so crazy: sigma, bruh, sus, ohio, rizz, cap/no cap just to name a few. believe me it takes a whole other kind of dictionary to keep up with kids these days. although I will say Steve was really impressed with my knowledge of the words and what the meant. 😂 I actually bought the toilet, it may show up in some Christmas games.

After we came home with Lila I let them play video games again so I could help her get ready for dance. We all went to her concert that evening which was so much fun! We saw her perform 5 dances in a 30 minute show (we usually only see 3 dances over 3 hours of dancing). The dances were fun and cute. Two of them they finished choreographing that morning so I was super proud of her for not getting too nervous and just having fun. She had a couple of young women leaders and their daughters come and then a couple of neighbor friends had kids in the other dance classes that performed so it was fun to hangout with all of them. I was taking tickets and saved seats for my family so as all of our friends were coming in I told them where to sit. And while I was out there her friend Lydia came by and said Hi. Then I saw Brooklyn from her DDA Comp team last year, whom she hasn't seen in forever. She recognized me and we talked and I told her Lila was on the Dance Company and performing at the show she was so excited to connect with her. The show was at her school Davis High since Layton's Auditorium is under construction. I'm used to screaming moms at dance competitions where I'm usually the quiet one and at this performance I was one of the louder spectators but definitely not obnoxiously loud. 😉

We all patiently waited for her to come out. It took her forever to gather her stuff, they did have quick changes so I get it but we wanted to hug her and her friends wanted to say Hi.

Tuesday, December 10th everyone had a rough morning. The boys were tired from their long weekend and day with Anson. Lila was sore from all the dancing and her cold seemed to come back with vengeance that day. I sent everyone to school because I thought they were just tired and I had a doctor's appointment with a new doc I've been waiting for for three months. Andrew had his 2nd term presentation on Einstein so we tried to make him look like the scientist.

 

Then I managed to get a few errands done and make some cookies to start our Christmas Cookie countdown until Christmas break (I started this a couple of years ago when we were all having a rough time continuing with school so I made small batch Christmas cookies each day for an after school treat to keep us going, it was so fun I've kept it going since then). However when I picked up the boys Marcus was running a 102 fever. He said he told the PE teacher he wanted to call home and she said no. Then they had early recess and the ground duty wouldn't let him to the office and then the assembly his teacher told him to wear his headphones since his head hurt. Really I'm so frustrated with the elementary school right now. UGH! I cancelled his piano lessons and let him rest and relax upstairs. Then I got Andrew ready for his Christmas performances at two assisted living facilities. They did a great job and it was festive.

Steve stayed behind helping Lila prep for her math test. Then when I got home I helped her look at schedule changes for next semester. 

 

Wednesday, December 11th Lila went in early to school with some friends to make the necessary changes. I'm proud of her for handling it on her own and making the necessary decisions she needed to get it done. Then I took Marcus to get strep tested because he says his throat hurts along with the fever and no other symptoms. Our pediatrician doesn't work Wednesdays so I thought we would go to the new urgent care near us and I could finish up some lab work that I needed to be fasting for but when we got to the urgent care it was slammed. So I texted Steve and he called in to try and get us an appointment at the Kaysville Tanner Clinic while I did my lab work. When we came out I called a local pharmacy who said they do strep testing for $40 and will dispense an antibiotic so I had Steve hangup and we went over there. Unfortunately she had to swab him twice because the first test didn't work right and she apologized and said she's never had that happen but Marcus was a trooper. We were the only ones at the pharmacy so that was nice. She said it would take 4-5 minutes so we waited around and after 2 minutes she said, "It's already showing positive so I'll start dispensing an antibiotic." Marcus asked if he could buy a special drink which I agreed to, anything to keep him drinking lots of fluids. As we were walking the store we ran into a cute neighbor kid who was there on work release and said, Hi. Then we came back picked up the antibiotic and headed home. In and out in 20 minutes and $50 with the antibiotic. I'm telling you that's what I'm going to do any time I think it's strep from now on.

This evening we took Andrew to see Yo Yo Ma in concert with the Utah Symphony for an early Christmas present. It was a lovely evening. The music was amazing. Yo Yo Ma is so dynamic and so talented. At the end everyone was standing and clapping a lot of course and he came out and blew kisses at us and jumped up and down. He came back out for an encore with is cello and signaled a small number with his fingers. It was fabulous.

There you have our fun. 'Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la, la la la la la la.

Believe, Christmas 2024

Believe it or not it has been a great year with lots of changes and learning curves. The biggest change is Ellie (18) moved out. Believe it or not she is living on campus at the University of Utah only a 40 minute train ride from us. It is fun to have her close and to have modern technology to video call or send packages with needed supplies with the click of a button. Yes, moving out is different than it once was but she is learning important and valuable life lessons. For example, she recently learned that international postage is different and had to find the campus USPS to send an important Christmas correspondence to a certain young man on a mission.😉😂  This is her final week of classes, exams are next week, and then she will be home for almost 3 weeks. YAY!

Lila (15) believe or not is in her sophomore year of high school and has her driver's permit. She is continuing the bridge Chinese program and really likes the Chinese teacher at the high school. She also made the high school dance company and is learning a new set of skills with them, grace and patience. She is used to cleaning a routine for almost a whole school year before performing it during comp season; Now she is learning pieces quicker and not getting as much time to clean them as she would like but she is having a good time and is surrounded by a great group of girls and getting involved at the high school which is good for her.

Andrew (11) enjoys knowing how things work. Believe it or not Steve and him have minds that work very similarly so listening to them have a conversation is quite funny and half the time I don't even know what they are talking about. For example, when my new fridge was delivered Andrew asked Steve, "Where do you think the photodiode is located on the fridge to detect someone coming near to turn on the light?" What?! He still enjoys the violin and is participating in a coop orchestra near us and of course basketball is still a big part of his life.

Marcus (8) Steve is constantly telling him, "variety is the spice of life". He is our picky eater hence Steve's reminder. Well on our recent trip to St George I asked Steve if he had our pickleball paddles and Marcus pointed out that the rental had some we could use. I explained that we like and feel more comfortable with our paddles. Believe it or not he responded with, "I thought variety was the spice of life?!" 😂 That kid is very observant and not afraid to tell you what he is thinking. He enjoyed flag football again this past fall and has decided he wants to go professional after playing for BYU of course. He is enjoying his Jr Jazz basketball team but only because there are no indoor flag football teams he can play on during the winter. He is continuing with piano lessons and excited to be in the school musical this year with Andrew. (They are performing in Elf this weekend.)

Steve and I are constantly trying to learn how to parent such a wide variety of children while striving to also enjoy it. We really enjoy playing pickleball and entered our first tournament over Thanksgiving and had a lot of fun. Believe it or not we got 2nd place. However, we were pickled in the championship game so obviously we still have a lot to learn but it was also a good teachable moment for us to show our kids that winning really isn't everything (something we have been talking about a lot around here). Steve cannot wait for ski season to begin and I'm just trying to stay warm.

Our family has a sign by our collection of Nativities that says, Believe. Believing in Jesus Christ is one thing. But believing in what He can help us accomplish is a whole different matter. "God so loved the world that He sent His Only Begotten Son to help us. And His Son, Jesus Christ, gave His life for us. All so that we could have access to godly power —power sufficient to deal with the burdens, obstacles, and temptations of our day" (Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives, President Russell M Nelson). My prayer this season is that we can do more than believe Jesus Christ is our Savior but trust Him to help us accomplish what seems impossible. We wish you a wonderful Christmas season and the Happiest of New Year's.

Love,

Steve, Britney, Ellie, Lila, Andrew, and Marcus

Grateful

Steve's brother Doug invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them in St George. We thought it sounded like a great plan so I booked a VRBO the night they called us and we have been looking forward to lovely getaway. The kids helped me make some pies we and cookies we could take down for the festivities. I didn't get a picture of Andrew helping me with the banana coconut cream pie but here Marcus is helping me with the apple cranberry and Lila is eating caramel out of her hair from the caramel chocolate pecan pie. 😂

 

The boys also worked really hard on some little thank yous for their school and primary teachers. We had a lot of fun delivering those the Sunday before Thanksgiving and then they took them to school on Monday.

Monday night November 25th, Ellie texted me telling me she wasn't feeling well and what could she take. I had sent her with a few cold meds but she had already used those so I went to bed worried about her. Tuesday is her long day of classes and she didn't know if she would have time to go to the store so I decided I would do a food order with some cold meds and take it to her. I texted her to tell her the plan and ask if she wanted anything specific. Then I got ready and headed out. I also wanted to get my eyes on her to see how sick she was if traveling was still a good idea. I met her near her dorms with the food I had picked up from Smith's and realized the ice cream I had ordered was out so we decided to run to Trader Joe's and see what fun things they had. We shopped for a bit and found her some fun new flavors of ice cream. Then we picked up some lunch from Zuppas to go so we could get the ice cream to her freezer and ate in the commons area on her floor. It was a lovely day and I'm truly grateful I took that time to go visit her. Another benefit of her being close. 💓

 

Our kids had school and play rehearsal Tuesday, November 26th and Steve had late pickleball league that night too and Ellie had class on Wednesday morning so we didn't leave until 10:30am Wednesday, November 27th. I thought we would order lunch on our way down from Spitz but the Spitz I was trying to order from didn't have some of our favorite things so we waited to get food until we stopped for gas in Payson. Then we hit the Abry's there which happened to be inside a gas station so I let the kids get a treat too. It was a nice get of the car for a bit even though we had just picked Ellie up about an hour before. Then we made it to our VRBO where we unloaded and the boys immediately found the arcade corner. My head was starting to hurt so Steve ran to pick up the groceries I had ordered. Doug and Joddy stopped by quickly then we decided to watch a movie as a family. We were trying to find one of the new Grinch movies but couldn't so we landed on Home Alone which ironically had a grinch scene in it. The movie went way past the boys bedtime but we had so much fun and it was a nice evening.

 

 

 

Thursday morning we just took it easy which was nice. I was a little dizzy, I think that ear/sinus infection was finally clearing out and causing some balance issues for me and we were all a little tired from traveling. Just as Ellie and Steve were about ready to head out on a bike ride Doug texted and said he was taking his boys to ride prospector so they met up with them for that while I went for a walk with Lila and then we had a ping pong tournament with the boys when we got back and we may have had a slice of pie along with our Thanksgiving charcuterie board. Then we went swimming.

 

The lazy river was fun then Andrew braved the slide. When Steve and Ellie arrived he convinced them to do the slide with him and then they all sat in the hot tub for a few minutes before we had to leave to get ready for Thanksgiving dinner. Dinner was yummy and we got to say hi to Sydney on her mission in Hawaii.

 

Their boys are always so good to my boys and they adore them. We met Dash too and he and Marcus hit it off great.

 

We taught them Happy Salmon.

 

Then Andrew was showing signs of being really tired so we decided to take the kids back to our place. We put the boys to bed and the girls watched the season finale of dancing with the stars while Steve and I metup with the other crew to play "midnight pickleball" ok it was 8:30pm but that's just what we called it. 😂 It was fun and their boys play tennis so they all have incredible serves and were really good.

 

Friday they wanted to go bowling but when they got to the place it was a two hour wait. We drove past the pickleball courts and they were full so we decided to go back to our VRBO and visit for a bit since they had their oldest Ethan with them who is still on crutches from his accident in August where he shattered his femur and he just broke the rod again and is going to have another surgery, poor kid. So we visited and the boys had a ping pong tournament. Then we all got ready to biking at this trail I had heard was good for beginners. Because the cool cousins were there Marcus got on his bike like it was something he does all the time and went right out onto the trail.

Unfortunately the first section had a bit of a canyon ledge that made us all nervous so after his first crash he came back and he and I rode the fire road back and forth a few times. We even saw some of our neighbors out on that trail and they rode with us a for a bit which Marcus thought was pretty cool.

Then the group started rolling in. Andrew and Lila both did great (you might be able to see Steve and Lila on the trail behind Doug). So we were happy everyone had a good experience.

We went back to our place ate some food and watched Home Alone 2. Ellie started our last puzzle in our subscription for the month. We thought we might meet up for "midnight pickleball" again but Doug's family was frozen after going to see the temple lights turn on and we couldn't find an open court so we came home and played Skyjo.

The kids enjoyed drinking this wassail punch I made from the margarita glasses. 😂

 

Saturday morning we met them at the Elephant Arch Trailhead to do a hike. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed the scenery and the walk out there. The boys enjoyed exploring all the rocks crevices and climbing around, collecting tumble weeds, and just visiting with cousins.

Then we had lunch and went swimming again. This time the Steve and the kids used the tubes to go down the slide and they said it was awesome. They spent 30 minutes going up and down the slide.

 

Then we came back and started packing up for the trip home the next day. Unfortunately Andrew said his stomach hurt and sure enough he started throwing up. I felt so bad for him. I actually felt like I had gotten him to eat a good amount of food for the day and then for him to toss it, it was sad. He laid on the couch and watched Sweet Home Home Along while Marcus did the arcades. We debated driving home that night. I was worried others might get sick Sunday morning but we said a prayer that Andrew would feel better and that no one else would get sick and decided to stay the night. We stayed up with the boys and watched the BYU football game until half time again. The darn late games make it too late to stay up and watch and make the turf really slick when it's 22 degrees outside. They did well in this game though and it was fun to watch. Miracles when we woke up Sunday morning Andrew was feeling better and no one else was sick. So we packed up and headed home early Sunday in hopes to beat some of the traffic. The kids watched a couple of movies and relaxed then we let Ellie open the present that had been sitting in the car the whole trip driving her crazy. I think she had finally figured out that it was an advent calendar. She got one with new art supplies and projects each day. I also sent her a little pop up Christmas tree and if I'd thought about it I would have taken her present on Tuesday when I went to check on her and left it under the tree but this way we got to see her open it.

 

When we got home we video chatted with her while the other three opened there. Lila got another beauty supply one, Andrew got an escape/puzzle like one he is really enjoying, and Marcus got a fidget toy one. Miles opened his when he got home a few hours later. He chose to go to Las Vegas with some friends over Thanksgiving break.

 

There you have it. We had a great, low key, Thanksgiving in the sun. It was amazing. Truly so much to be grateful for.